The evolution of dissent<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"If religion is a virus, then perhaps the spread of religion can be understood through the lens of evolutionary theory. Perhaps cultural evolution can be\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/epiphenom\/2010\/12\/evolution-of-dissent.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The evolution of dissent\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"If religion is a virus, then perhaps the spread of religion can be understood through the lens of evolutionary theory. 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{"id":222,"date":"2010-12-15T22:37:00","date_gmt":"2010-12-15T21:37:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/epiphenom\/2010\/12\/the-evolution-of-dissent.html"},"modified":"2014-11-12T04:47:26","modified_gmt":"2014-11-12T03:47:26","slug":"evolution-of-dissent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/epiphenom\/2010\/12\/evolution-of-dissent.html","title":{"rendered":"The evolution of dissent"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Well, that\u2019s overly simplistic, of course \u2013 as anyone who\u2019s followed the \u2018meme\u2019 controversy over the years will know. In fact, the authors of the paper I\u2019m writing up today \u2013 Michael Doebli and Iaroslav Ispolatov at the University of\u00a0 British Columbia \u2013 studiously avoid using the term.<\/p>\n

Want they set out to model was the development of religious schisms. Such schisms are a recurrent feature of religion, especially in the West. The classic example is the fracturing of Christianity that occured after the reformation.<\/p>\n

Their model made two simple assumptions. Firstly, that religions that are highly dominant actually induce some people to want to break away from them. When a religion becomes overcrowded, then some individuals will lose their religion and take up another.<\/p>\n

That could happen, they say, when religions are hierarchical, providing greatest benefit to a few at the top. Eventually, for those cut out from the power structure, the benefit of striking out with their own, new religion might outweigh the costs.<\/p>\n

Second, they assume that every religion has a value to the individual that is composed of it\u2019s costs and benefits. That value varies between religion, but is the same for all individuals. It\u2019s a pretty simplistic assumption, but even so they get some interesting results.<\/p>\n

At each generation, the religion can mutate a little, just like a virus.<\/p>\n

With these simple assumptions, they get a range of results depending on how they tweak the parameters. In one, they end up with a wide, even spread of religions \u2013 and infinite range of religions, clustered around a central, average, archetype.<\/p>\n

But tweak the parameters a bit more,and you get a discrete number of stable schisms \u2013 just like the religious sects seen in real life.<\/p>\n

Now, this is a very simple model, and so the results shouldn\u2019t be over-interpreted. But it\u2019s a fascinating result for a couple of reasons.<\/p>\n

It shows how new religious \u2018species\u2019 can come into being in a mixed population \u2013 no need for geographical separation. That\u2019s such a common feature of religion \u2013 from the Judaeo-Christian religions to examples from Papua New Guinea \u2013 that it\u2019s worth trying to understand what drives it.
What\u2019s more, this is the first time that anyone has attempted to model the transmission of religious ideas in evolutionary terms. It\u2019s a first step, to be sure, but just showing that it can be done is a significant achievement.<\/p>\n

The value comes because it shifts the focus from thinking about how culture benefits the host, and instead asks how the cultural trait is adaptive in it\u2019s own right. What is important is not whether or not the human host benefits from the trait, but rather whether the trait can successfully transmit and reproducing itself (see Bible Belter<\/a> for an example of how this could work).<\/p>\n

Even more intriguing is the implications for understanding cultural-genetic co-evolution. After all, we know that viruses and their hosts co-evolve in a kind of arms race \u2013 sometimes ending up in a relationship that benefits both.<\/p>\n

Genetic evolution in humans occurs in an environment shaped by culture \u2013 and culture, in turn is shaped by genetics. There are clearly some very deep relationships here, and the kinds of models introduced by Doebeli offer a way to untangle them.<\/p>\n

$\"ResearchBlogging.org\"$ <\/a><\/span>Doebeli M, & Ispolatov I (2010). A model for the evolutionary diversification of religions. Journal of theoretical biology, 267<\/span> (4), 676-84 PMID: 20854828<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

$\"Creative$ <\/a><\/span> This article by Tom Rees<\/b> was first published on Epiphenom<\/a>. It is licensed under Creative Commons<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"